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Comment by blowski | Hacker News Reader

Recently, I’ve seen much talk about writing code on an iPad. What’s the use case here, or are people just geeking out over what’s possible?

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I think it is Surface envy. The iPads are just not very capable in productivity scenarios and Macs are not very flexible. So, if you want a touchscreen device for leisure and a productive device work work, you end up with two machines with very similar specs on the inside. It does not make a whole lot of sense, but it is the state of the Apple ecosystem. Now, Microsoft has a whole bunch of other problems (mainly around reliability) that make the Surface a bit of a mess. But, they do seem to have the right form factor for modern computing.

I think most just geek out; I find it exciting when I can open iSH.app on my phone.

In practice though I think it’s just a painful experience since everything that’s easy to do on your computer now needs a brand new, bespoke and paid solution.

Gitpod is just a free VSCode instance. On a computer you have the option to use this cloud instance; on the iPad you must use it.

Just as an example iPads have usually better screen than laptops, so if you work outside in a sunny place at a caffee place, iPad may be a better device to bring with you.

mentioned this in another comment but my use case is mostly not wanting to spend a lot of time setting up a dev environment on a machine i rarely use for programming. in my case, sometimes i like to do my code reviews in bed and/or in an emergency be able to quickly access my env prod.

it's mostly a novelty to ':0' at but i'm sure it's useful for showing people how to get started. i could easily see an intro workshop making use of gitpod and advertising it as a platform agnostic beginner course!

It saves you buying and/or carrying yet another device, if you have or are going to have an iPad anyway.

So this is an alternative to a laptop for those who have a desktop?

Who have a desktop, or who'd like to try to drop to just one device for whatever reason (cost, easier traveling, minimalism, whatever)

wouldn't it make sense to drop the ipad and/or desktop, since the laptop can do what either of those can do?

of course with some exceptions like hardcore gaming

A laptop can't do all the things an iPad can. Other things, it can, but it's worse for them. It's not as practical to add on hardware & software to make a laptop able to do those things, as it is to add a keyboard and pointing device to an iPad and try to attack the problem from the other direction, if you don't strictly need some of the things that a laptop can do but an iPad can't (local virtual machines, for example).

The more likely reason is the iPad has software that the laptop does not. If you need to use Procreate or GoodNotes (for example), then it might make sense to find some compromise solution for the rest of the work that you would normally do on a laptop.

That's could be part of it, but for AR, drawing or (hand) writing, reading long-form text, applications that involve putting your device where a piece of paper or a paper notebook might go (lecterns, music stands), anything that requires or is made better by orientation sensors and accelerometers, basically anything involving a camera that's not video conferencing, plus probably some other stuff I'm forgetting about, the format and hardware capabilities of an iPad make it significantly better than a laptop.

Laptops are better at some other things, but if you do very much of the above you're probably gonna have a tablet, too. If you don't do much of what laptops can do that iPads can't (mostly for software-limitations reasons), then replacing the laptop with your tablet might be a viable approach. You can't really do the reverse without a bunch of extra hardware (admittedly, you do need a keyboard and some kind of pointing device for the iPad-as-laptop-replacement thing, too) or just carrying two devices.

The iPad format is really convenient in situations where a laptop can be a drag.

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